Classical Weekdays

WRTI brings you the best recordings of works from the vast world of classical music every weekday from 6 am to 6 pm. Chamber music, symphonies, choral works, violin concertos, piano sonatas, and more...engagingly presented with insight and a smile by our knowledgeable hosts.

11:43 am

Sun February 15, 2015

What a perfect way to wrap up Valentine's weekend! Spend Sunday, February 15 from 3 to 5:30 pm with one of the great operatic love stories of all time, Puccini's La Bohéme, presented by the Academy of Vocal Arts on WRTI.

The opera tells the story of a poor poet, and an equally poor seamstress, as they fall in love one cold winter in 19th-century Paris. The opera is based on Scenes of Bohemian Life, a book by Henri Murger. One of the most beloved operas in the repertoire, and a broadcast not to be missed!

Valentine's Weekend on WRTI

4:24 pm

Wed February 11, 2015

A sweet weekend of romantic music is planned for all of our listeners...so get ready! We're warming up for Valentine's Day on Friday, just after 12 noon. Jack Moore will bring you Romance for Cello, Harp and Strings by Hungarian composer Leo Weiner, Rachmaninoff's ultra-romantic Piano Concerto No. 3, and Pablo de Sarasate's virtuoso Fantasy on Gounod's Romeo and Juliet for violin and orchestra.

The true story of a 19th-century swindler in New York City inspired not only an opera, but also a concerto. WRTI’s Susan Lewis has more on Bramwell Tovey’s Songs of the Paradise Saloon for trumpet and orchestra.

Radio Script:

Susan Lewis: Commissioned by the Calgary Opera, Bramwell Tovey became intrigued by the life of a notorious man named Alexander Keith. Both charming and deadly, Keith swindled many, and eventually planted explosives in an ocean liner, killing 80 people.

WRTI has entered a new frontier in fund drives. Our mission: to eliminate the traditional Winter Drive as you know it, to boldly go where we’ve never gone before. Enter the WRTI Warp Drive.

What’s a Warp Drive? With your help, it’s faster than the speed of light! We quickly raise $325,000 — with your help now — to avoid the traditional-sounding Winter Drive, which is slated to begin on February 9th.

Creatively Speaking

1:44 pm

Wed February 4, 2015

For decades, musicians have struggled to determine what J.S. Bach sounded like in his own time. As The Philadelphia Inquirer's David Patrick Stearns reports, The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia is turning the clock in a different direction on February 8th at Girard College, determining what Bach sounded like in the time of...Mendelssohn.

Curtis Institute of Music composition student TJ Cole is only 21, but she already has a string of impressive commissions under her belt. Last year she was chosen to write a piece of music based on the Free Library's 2015 One Book, One Philadelphia selection - Orphan Train, a novel by Christina Baker Kline.

It’s the story of 91-year-old Vivian, who lost her family as a child, and 17-year-old Molly, a foster child who also knows what it’s like to be alone and unwanted.